December 3, 2005

Dylan had stopped singing "Masters of War" by 1964. Songs like that were "lies that life is black and white," he sang that year. He brought it back into his repertoire in the 1980s; he was playing more than a hundred shows a year, and to fill the nights he brought back everything. It was a crowd-pleaser, the number one protest song. But nothing in the song hinted at what it would turn into on February 21, 1991, at the Grammy Awards telecast, where Dylan was to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The show came square in the middle of the first Iraqi-American War—a break from round-the-clock footage of the bombing of Baghdad....

With that night, the song began its second life. In the fall of 2002, when George W. Bush made plain his intent to launch a second Iraq war—on November 11, just after the midterm elections that Bush had used the specter of war to win—Dylan appeared at Madison Square Garden and again offered "Masters of War" as an answer record to real life....

It became clear that, beyond new wars, what has kept the song alive is its melody, and its vehemence: that final "I hope that you die." It's the elegance of the melody and the extremism of the words that attract people—the way the song does go too far, to the limits of free speech. It's a scary line to sing; you need courage to do it. You can't come to the song as if it's a joke; you can't come away from it pretending you didn't mean what you've just said. That's what people want: a chance to go that far. Because "Masters of War" gives people permission to go that far, the song continues to make meaning, to find new bodies to inhabit, new voices to ride.

Read the whole thing, which includes descriptions of other singers doing the song, including those kids at Boulder High School.

I remember listening to "Masters of War" in the 1960s. It releases the young mind to think a new thought: All these people who run the world deserve to die. It emboldens you to sing along with this seemingly profound insight, and, singing along, you find yourself expressing utterly hard anger and hatred.

18 comments:

Would this be an inappropriate place for me to post the parody of 'Masters of War' that I made right after Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in Pakistan? It's titled 'Masterminds of War' and it's a complete loving rip off of Dylan's standard with all the vehemence left intact.

"Because "Masters of War" gives people permission to go that far, the song continues to make meaning, to find new bodies to inhabit, new voices to ride."

Yes, fear and dread of war is part of the human condition. Life's realities, however, require more of us. It's fitting that immature, fearful teenagers are used here to parade myopic solipsism as virtue by the anti-US contingent.

Interesting….Not a lot of songs that go for a strong emotion go for hatred. Anger yes, but not hatred. Do you think Dylan meant to go for anger w/ Masters of War, but missed and got hatred instead? Marcus presses the “black and white world” angle, but maybe Dylan avoided the song for so long because he didn’t like its emotional result.

I cling to a reed of hope that Dylan always did intend and still intends the inexactness of the term "masters of war." It seems Greil Marcus doesn't, although it's hard to tell for sure from this excerpt.

Marcus gave essentially the same talk at Columbia University in March of this year, and was taken to task for it quite effectively by Christopher Ricks. I happened to be there and wrote an account of it here:

I think "Masters of War" is Dylan's biggest mis-step. I wonder if the only way he felt he could (artistically) get away with appropriating "Nottamun Town" was to write lyrics that hit the listeners and critics and musicians of the time in a very soft spot - hence an antiwar anthem.

But we're out of `Nam now, and "Masters of War" is just not as interesting (lyric-wise, of course) as "Nottamun Town," so what's the point? I think he knew what he was doing when he chucked it for 25 years.... (And he knew what he was doing when he brought it back too - fresh suckers).

I don't mean to make this a pick your favorite Dylan song discussion, but I personally think his best and perhaps greatest protest song is "Its all right ma (I'm only bleeding)", which I think is quite possibly a protest against all humanity.

A few choice lines from the song follow:

Old lady judges watch people in pairs Limited in sex, they dare To push fake morals, insult and stare While money doesn't talk, it swears Obscenity, who really cares Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see With a killer's pride, security It blows the minds most bitterly For them that think death's honesty Won't fall upon them naturally Life sometimes Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards False gods, I scuff At pettiness which plays so rough Walk upside-down inside handcuffs Kick my legs to crash it off Say okay, I have had enough What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen They'd probably put my head in a guillotine But it's alright, Maw, it's life, and life only.

Not to diminish Dylan's original, but the absolute best rendition of MOW I ever heard/saw was Eddie Vedder's a capella version at the Dylan 30th Anniversary concert.

Bobdylan.com includes this lil blurb about Vedder's take on MOW:

The riveting acoustic rendition of "Masters Of War" by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready, was arguably the evenings most pleasant surprise. These two young Dylan fans didn't need any loud Seattle sonics to get across Dylan's pointed protest classic from "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." Vedder, who blissfully watched rehearsals for the concert from the front row of a nearly empty Madison Square Garden, proved with his wonderfully intense interpretation that when it comes to a great song, there's no such thing as a generation gap.

Thanks, WISJoe, I've always loved that passage too. We usually remember the protest songs that are anti-war or against race discrimination. That's one about repressive morality and all sorts of things that you could spend a lot of time trying to figure out. I know I did when I was a teenager. Something about that song made me feel he knew what he was talking about and that it was important to understand what it was. It's a funny thing, to agree in advance with ideas you can't understand.

Advertising signs they conYou into thinkin you're the oneWho can do what's never been doneWho can win what's never been oneMeantime life goes on all around you

It's pretty easy to figure out what he's talking about there; and I probably don't even agree with the urgency of the message anymore: it's pretty easy to step around the advertising signs once you kind of blink and wake up to them.

But it's hard to deny that's what the advertising signs are trying to do, and they keep trying to do, and I've never lost the belief that there's got to be some kind of overall detrimental effect on the overall feel and workings of life.

Basically, though: what a great summing up of the problem.

The thought-dreams line: what a great line. A little self-aggrandizing, since they would not put his head in a guillotine but would simply turn to the next mark. But what a great line.

Come you masterminds of warYou that buy all the gunsYou that plan the death planes,To make them into big bombsYou that hide behind wallsYou that hide in your caves I just want you to knowI see through your germ infested beards.

You that never done nothin' butbuild to destroyYou play with our worldLike it's your little toyYou put boxcutters in some hands,Hide in Afghanistan,And you turn, run, and hideWhen the coalition lands

Like Judas of oldYou lie and deceiveAn Islamic civil war can be wonYou want us to believeBut I see through your liesAnd I see through your brainLike I see through the waterThat runs down my drain

You fasten the triggersFor suicide bombers to fireWhile you sit back and watchThe death count grow higherYou hide in your phoney mosquesAnd you hide in Pakistani heapsWhile the blood of innocent children Flows out of their bodiesAnd runs through the streets

How much do I knowTo talk out of turnYou might call me an infidel You might put a fatwah on my head

But there's one thing I knowThough I'm not a religious fanatic like youEven Allah himself would neverForgive what you do

Let me ask you this question:Is your jihad that good?Will it bring you holiness?Do you think that it could?I think you will findWhen your capture takes its tollThat none of the virgins in paradiseWill be thinkin'"Hey dude, how ‘bout a roll?"

And I hope that you diea long reflective deathI’ll follow the blogsTill you take your last breath

Not being much of a pop culturist, I had to look up the words to Masters of War. As mentioned on an earlier post "Life's realities, however, require more of us."

I am in the middle of Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics and conclude:

1. I do not have the emotional make-up (nor the talent) to lead a country2. A person has to be a little bit crazy to want to be president3. One needs an unusual toughness, hardness and pragmatism 4. When entering the Oval Office the person is a mere fledgling regardless of past experience. Upon leaving the Oval Office one's soul has surely been tested by fire.

It would be difficult to make life and death decision knowing that there is no going back and that I alone must live with the results.

By contrast all the brave chattering chipmunks and ankle biters fade into oblivion.

Come you masters of warYou that build all the gunsYou that build the death planesYou that build the big bombsYou that hide behind wallsYou that hide behind desksI just want you to knowI can see through your masks

Whoever he/she/they were:

In nottamun town not a soul would look up,Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down,Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down,To show me the way to fair nottamun town.

Dylan's not guilty of a capital artistic crime here? And it's not like the guy couldn't write a first verse:

Bad news, bad news,Come to me where I sleep,Turn, turn, turn again.Sayin' one of your friendsIs in trouble deep,Turn, turn to the rainAnd the wind.

or

Ev'rybody's building the big ships and the boats,Some are building monuments,Others, jotting down notes,Ev'rybody's in despair,Ev'ry girl and boyBut when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy.